The invention relates generally to a hamper dumper and more specifically to auxiliary structure for controlling the discharge of parcels therefrom. In the past the unloading of a full hamper has presented a major problem in the handling of the contents within the hamper. Although the basic desire was to unload the hamper as quickly as possible, it frequently resulted in damage to the parcels. An example of a prior method was to put the hamper in a hamper dumper apparatus that would pivot the hamper from an upright position to an inverted position. This resulted in an excessive drop height for the parcels and produced an unreasonable amount of parcel damage. An alternative prior method to prevent this resulting parcel damage was for individual workers to physically unload the parcels piece by piece. This method was quite slow and expensive. Due to the size of the hampers and the weight of a full load of parcels two or more workers could physically lift and tilt a hamper to unload it. This method was faster than the manual unloading of the hamper but remains inefficient and costly due to the need for several workers to physically lift and tilt the hampers. This last method while reducing the excessive drop height of the parcels still did not prevent parcel damage since they were still tumbling and dropping out of the hamper. An example of where this unloading problem exists is in the handling of parcels in post office operations. The need here is for fast and expeditious handling of the parcels and yet the change for damage to the parcels has to be minimized. This type of problem additionally exists in other environments such as warehousing operations, shipping departments, etc.
It is an object of the invention to provide a hamper dumper that can control the discharge of parcels from a hamper when it is being dumped.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a hamper dumper that can prevent drop damage to articles being discharged from a hamper when it is being dumped.